Million-copy-selling Chris Brookmyre takes his fiction further than ever before in this wildly inventive and sharply-plotted novel set in the unforgiving emptiness of space.

"This is as close to a city without crime as mankind has ever seen."

Ciudad de Cielo is the 'city in the sky', a space station where hundreds of scientists and engineers work in earth's orbit, building the colony ship that will one day take humanity to the stars.

Book Review:

Space is the final frontier. So it is no surprise that fictional towns in space – on the moon, on space stations on generation ships – are portrayed as frontier towns. And usually not in a positive way. Recently Ian McDonald’s Luna series portrayed a fairly lawless lunar colony run by dynastic families and Andy Weir’s protagonist in his recent Artemis, also on the Moon, makes a living running contraband. So when Places in the Darkness begins and new security chief Alice Blake is told that mankind’s first space station is totally crime free, the reader knows there is more to it. That and the fact that the book has opened with parts of a dismembered body floating in zero gravity.

Nicky “Fixx” Freeman is part of the local Seguridad but she moonlights as a fixer. Collecting protection money and helping a local alcohol smuggler and enforcer as part of a local gang war. Because mankind’s first space station, Cuidad de Cielo (“City in the Sky” or CdC) is riddled with corruption. A state of affairs to which the four ruling corporations (known as the Quadriga) turns a blind eye. But the locals know that the global government might be interested, given that the CdC is also where the first generational star ships, the hope for humanity, are being constructed. A blatant murder, followed by the opening shots of gang warfare puts Nikky in the frame and Alice, a representative of the global government, on the case.

Scottish author Chris Brookmyre is much better known for his gritty, often tongue in cheek crime fiction novels many featuring investigative journalist Jack Parlabane. He brings much of that sensibility to Places in the Darkness. Brookmyre understands that crime fiction is a great way to dig under the surface of a society. The only issue here is that he needs to do a fair amount of setting up and exposition (including a full on lecture early on) to get to the point where he can start digging. So much so that early on this feels like two different novels shoehorned together. But this feeling quickly subsides. And much of this is due to the characters – Nikky Fixx, an ex-LA cop who is carrying around an ancient pain and has become part of a completely corrupt system and Alice Blake, the straight-laced investigator having her eyes opened to how the world really works.

There is plenty going on here and it takes a while for Brookmyre to put all of the pieces into place. But once he does this becomes a classic buddy cop adventure (in space) as the situation spins dangerously out of control and repercussions of failure become more serious. Plenty of cliffhangers, clues and action. And along the way, also a fair amount of contemplation of issues like the nature of consciousness, how societies operate and what constitutes free will.

In the end it does not matter whether this can be considered science fiction with crime genre stylings or crime fiction set in a science fiction universe. In fact what it displays is the limitations of bothering at all with genre. Places in the Darkness is a great read, period and recommended for crime readers, scifi aficionados or just anyone who likes a good book.

Detective Catherine McLeod was always taught that in Glasgow, they don't do whodunit. They do score-settling. They do vendettas. They do petty revenge.

It's a lesson that has served her well, but Glasgow is also a dangerous place to make assumptions. Either way she looks at it, she recognises that the discovery of a dead drug-dealer in a back alley is merely a portent of further deaths to come.

Book Review:

You hear these rumours, and they can panic a person. "Christopher Brookmyre has gone straight with his latest book." I was twitchy. How could he (either to his readers or to himself)? Surely the man cannot possibly have lost his acute sense of the bizarre, his sly, dry and clever sense of humour. Could he? Of course not. Daft idea. WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED might be a police procedural, crime fiction based book, but it's classic Chris(topher) Brookmyre from the start to the end. How could it not be! Glasgow Policing 101 - as explained to one of the main characters Detective Catherine McLeod, when a rookie cop:

'This is Glesca.'... 'Any time you're confused, take a wee minute to remind yourself of that inescapable fact: this is Glesca. We don't do subtle, we don't do nuanced, we don't do conspiracy. We do pish-heid bampot bludgeoning his girlfriend to death in a fit of paranoid rage induced by forty-eight hours straight on the batter. We do coked-up neds jumping on a guy's heid outside a nightclub because he looked at them funny. We do drug-dealing gangster rockets shooting other drug-dealing gangster rockets as comeback for something almost identical a fortnight ago. We do bam-on-bam. We do tit-for-tat, score-settling, feuds, jealousy, petty revenge. We do straightforward. We do obvious. We do cannaemisswhodunit. When you hear hoofbeats on Sauchiehall Street, it's gaunny be a horse, no' a zebra...'.

Phew. Brookmyre without a rant ... well ... I'd have to double check that the earth's rotation was still in alignment.

But is this good crime fiction? Yes. In a nutshell. It's very good crime fiction. It's a nice, complicated, and very believable plot. It's full of the sorts of cunning and stupidity that you expect from the cops and crooks. There's dedication, there's a bit of the past coming forward to screw with the present, the interlacing of worlds over many generations. There's also more than enough twists and turns, and even a couple of lovely poignant moments. There's some hugely funny moments, there's some poignant ones as well. One of Brookmyre's talents has always been to create very believable, human characters. McLeod is a marvellous combination of a dedicated, clever senior cop with a home life and all the doubts and insecurities that lots of people with rotten jobs have about hanging onto everything they hold dear. Another main character - Jasmine Sharp, niece of a missing ex-cop, private detective - recently bereaved when her mother and sole parent died, Jasmine's a bit of a mess, to put it mildly. She's not the world's greatest trainee private detective, but she gets points for being a very dedicated workmate and friend to her boss. Two excellent female characters, different from each other, but the same in many ways, Brookmyre's also created a supporting cast who work with these two extremely well. Okay there's one scenario that's a bit hard to swallow at the start of the book - but the end of the book explains it all - and besides that, it wasn't until I was well into the action that the lightbulb went off and this reader suddenly went... what the?

That's the other thing that works in WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED, as it does in any Brookmyre book. The pace is fantastic. The action rolls on, the people do their thing, the tension rises, the reader loses sleep.

There's nothing worse than a panic over where one of your favourite authors is going. Dismiss it from your minds. Chris / Christopher / Mr Brookmyre, whatever he and his publishers want to call him knows how to write books. Very good books. WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED is one of them.

Name change from Christopher to Chris, but this is the Brookmyre - writing straight crime it seems. From the first few chapters I read last night there's just the slightly feeling of that dry, sarcastic humour so well loved by fans of his books.

From the Blurb:

Detective Catherine McLeod was always taught that in Glasgow, they don't do whodunit. They do score-settling. They do vendettas. They do petty revenge.